Glancing Backward, 1/17/13

Today is Thursday, Jan. 17, the 17th day of 2013. There are 348 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Jan. 17, 1963, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, appearing as amicus curiae (friend of the court) before the U.S. Supreme Court, told the justices in Gray v. Sanders that Georgia's county unit voting system in Democratic primaries discriminated against urban voters. (The court later struck down the county unit system, citing the concept of "one person, one vote.")

Glancing Backward Locally:

25 years ago - 1988

Two local school district officials are among those beginning terms on the executive board of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association. Mary Moon, board secretary for Wyalusing Area School Board, is vice president of the School Board Secretaries Department; and Kay Husick, Sayre Area School District board member, is a Region 12 director.

Before a crowd estimated at about 2,000, the Wyalusing Valley High wrestling team yesterday jolted the Troy High grapplers 32-12.

William Miller opened his drug store on Church Street in Wyalusing last week. The drug store is in the rear portion of the Enterprise Store.

75 years ago - 1938

Sixty-six vocational agriculture boys from Bradford County schools are attending the Pennsylvania Farm Show at Harrisburg this week.

The Canton and LeRoy Farmers Telephone Co. have elected the following officers and directors: President and General Manager W.H. Collins; Vice President Lloyd Lewis, Treasurer Adelbert Seeley; and Secretaries Paul Griswold and R.A. Palmer.

Lew Shelly, who has been assistant superintendent of Susquehanna County, will be the new superintendent of state highways in Wyoming County, it was learned today.

Elsewhere on this date:

In 1562, French Protestants were recognized under the Edict of St. Germain.

In 1863, British politician and statesman David Lloyd George was born in Manchester, England.

In 1893, the 19th president of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes, died in Fremont, Ohio, at age 70. Hawaii's monarchy was overthrown as a group of businessmen and sugar planters forced Queen Lili'uokalani to abdicate.

In 1917, the United States paid Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands.

In 1929, the cartoon character Popeye the Sailor made his debut in the "Thimble Theatre" comic strip.

In 1945, Soviet and Polish forces liberated Warsaw during World War II; Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews, disappeared in Hungary while in Soviet custody.

In 1950, the Great Brink's Robbery took place as seven masked men held up a Brink's garage in Boston, stealing $1.2 million in cash and $1.5 million in checks and money orders. (Although the entire gang was caught, only part of the loot was recovered.)

In 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered his farewell address in which he warned against "the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."

In 1977, convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, 36, was shot by a firing squad at Utah State Prison in the first U.S. execution in a decade.

In 1989, five children were shot to death at the Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, Calif., by a drifter, Patrick Purdy, who then killed himself.

In 1995, more than 6,000 people were killed when an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 devastated the city of Kobe, Japan.

Ten years ago: On the 12th anniversary of the Gulf War, a defiant Saddam Hussein called on his people to rise up and defend the nation against a new U.S.-led attack. Tom Ridge sailed through Senate confirmation hearings on his way to becoming the nation's first Homeland Security Department chief. Actor Richard Crenna died in Los Angeles at age 76. Gertrude Janeway, the last known widow of a Union veteran from the Civil War, died in Blaine, Tenn., at age 93 (she had married John Janeway in 1927 when he was 81 and she was barely 18).

Five years ago: Bobby Fischer, the chess grandmaster who became a Cold War icon when he dethroned the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky as world champion in 1972, died in Reykjavik, Iceland, at age 64. Character actor Allan Melvin died in Los Angeles at age 84.

One year ago: Italian officials released a recording of a furious Coast Guard officer, Capt. Gregorio De Falco, demanding that Capt. Francesco Schettino, commander of the grounded Costa Concordia, re-board the ship to direct its evacuation after the vessel rammed into a reef on Jan. 13. (Schettino resists the order, making excuses that it's dark and that the ship is listing.) Johnny Otis, the "godfather of rhythm and blues" who wrote and recorded the R&B classic "Willie and the Hand Jive," died in Los Angeles at age 90.

Thought for Today: "A politician is a person with whose politics you don't agree; if you agree with him he's a statesman." - David Lloyd George (1863-1945).

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